The GENES Blog (GEnealogy News and EventS): Top stories concerning ancestral research in Britain, Ireland, and their diasporas, from Irish born Scottish based professional family historian, author and tutor Chris Paton. Feel free to quote from this blog, but please credit The GENES Blog if you do so. To contact me please email chrismpaton @ outlook.com.

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Thursday, 9 April 2015

Admiralty Charts of Scotland, 1795-1963, now online from NLS

A new online addition from the maps department at the National Library of Scotland (www.nls.uk):

New online Admiralty Charts of Scotland, 1795-1963

The National Library of Scotland has just made newly available online 950 charts covering Scottish coastal waters in the 19th and 20th centuries. These are all their holdings of Admiralty charts of the Scottish coastline and adjacent seas, published over 50 years ago. Admiralty Charts show many coastal features in good detail, and are also useful in surveying the coasts before the Ordnance Survey for many northern counties in Scotland. For many of Scotland’s busier estuaries and ports, there are also regular revisions of charts coming through to the present day - often more revisions than for Ordnance Survey maps, and at different dates.

Charts are also useful for genealogists as they include detailed and informative depictions of coastal towns and harbours. Conspicuous buildings such as churches, towers, or chimneys were always of interest, as well as the overall size and shape of settlements. Charts are often also useful sources of information on communications, such as roads, railways, bridges, and canals.